Six Ways to Say Goodbye to 2019

                                           


For most of us 2019 was an extremely difficult year.  This has been true on a personal level for many of us, and it certainly has been true on a global level.  In beginning the new year, and looking forward to a really wonderful 2020, I thought it might make sense to share some thoughts on a process that allows us to gain the most from the experiences of 2019, and then to let it go so that 2020 can begin with a fresh and revitalized energy.

Where to begin?

You Review It.
Pay attention, read deeply, learn, find your way through the events and inform yourself. Go beyond the cable news networks and the mainstream press. Why?  Because they all have an agenda.  Try your best to see their agenda, and to incorporate it into your understanding of the ways in which the “news” is packaged and presented.  Read books on current events, read interviews in alternative news outlets, even those you might disagree with.  Do your own research, form  your own opinions.  Don’t be in a hurry to agree with others, even those you identify as your like-minded compatriots.

                                          The bodies of Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and
                                           his daughter Valeria on the banks of the Rio Grande
                                           Photo by Julia Le Duc - AP

You Write About It, You Record It.
Journaling, writing op-eds, stories, articles, blogs, photographs.  Writing about it helps you to clarify your own feelings. But equally important, this is a time when those opinions you’ve formed from the work you’ve done can be shared. Every individual voice that springs from a well-researched and explored place elevates the conversation.

Why does that matter?

Because you need to Assimilate It All.
After informing yourself and writing about it to gain clarity about your own understanding and conclusions, you have to find ways to make the events meaningful in a more expansive way.  How do the experiences of 2019 connect to history?  How might they connect to the future? What are the themes, the motifs, the lessons? What patterns in history, in human behavior, are you seeing? This is the point where you begin to understand this time we are living through as a point on a timeline of history, a time when your understanding of events takes on a much larger and more expansive vision.

You Learn.
Wisdom comes from learning from the events that shape your life and the lives of others.  You develop a deeper understanding, a greater sense knowing that operates like a radar.  You see things coming, your instincts operate more quickly.  You know the deeper meanings to be found beneath certain sorts of narrative.

You Mourn, You Thank It, You Let It Go.
Holding on to anything, especially the negative experiences, creates a lot of negative energy, stress, illness.  The process that takes you through your experiences has given you all you need.  When I say let go, I don’t mean forget.  I don’t mean forgive.  I mean you let go so that you can take the things that have happened, learn, grow, and release.  You move on.  You liberate yourself from the chains of heavy and dark remembrance in order to act and focus on the future.

                                                     Alaa Salah, The Sudanese Protests
                                                      Photo by Lana H. Haroun

You Move Forward. 
2020 is here.  Our individual lives are calling on us to make plans, to set a course and hold to it.  Our collective lives are in need of serious repair.  2019 has shown many of us the world we do NOT want. We are facing some of the most serious threats humanity has ever faced: the very real possibility of a destroyed planet; the growing rage of the majority population who have been disregarded and considered disposable by a small group of obscenely wealthy and powerful elite; the vicious refusal of a patriarchal system many thousands of years old to face its failures and the ruin caused by greed, power lust, war, brutality.  

We’re on a cusp. In one direction is certain ruin and death; in the other, the promise of a new world being born.  Birth is hard.  It’s messy and painful and not without its dangers.  But it is also filled with hope and vision.  It is life-affirming.  It is the direction I choose, and commit to, willing to face the mess and the pain and the danger to take part of the birth of a better world.    What I’ve learned from studying our human history is that it’s essential now, there is no time to waste – we have to begin a new era.

                                                Midwife and newborn child, Nigeria
                                                 Photo by Lynsey Addario for TIME

What does that look like?  It is a world where we hold reverence for life in all its forms. We work to heal our Earth, to save and care for nature, for animals, for humans.  We dismantle the old systems and institutions that were built on subjugation and suffering, inequality and brutality.  We build a new economic system, a new social system that holds quality of life – all life --  as the most important value.  No more measuring success through the stock market or through a country’s GDP.  We measure success when we’ve ended war and committed to a planet living in peace and harmony; when we’ve reversed the threat of planetary death; when we’ve brought animals back from the brink of extinction; when we’ve built communities and societies that honor human potential in each and every one of us.  When we understand the social good that comes from seeing each child as filled with individual potential and ability, and supporting every child in the individual journey toward their own genius.   When we know that everyone deserves to live a life of security – with money, food, shelter, health, respect and dignity.  That all of us should have equal access to a joyful quality of life and well-being.  When our societies are no longer hierarchical, but horizontal.  I understand that these can be dismissed as utopian ideals.  But those same people who scoff at such ideals are often either the people who are benefitting from the dystopia our current system has created, or the people so broken and victimized by that dystopia that they’ve lost all hope.  

                                           Children Chant for Climate Change in NYC
                                                      Photo by Dannah Gottlieb

I choose hope.  Radical hope.  To maintain such hope, and to work toward a world built on a hopeful vision won’t be easy, but it will be possible, if we come together,  letting go of all the old messages, all the old ways that the world has crushed our souls and our spirits. If we learn from the experiences of the past in order to make a better future, beginning in 2020.  Beginning now. 

                                          Storm survivor receives comfort and care in Nepal
                                        Photo by Narendra Shrestha - EPA-EFE/Shutter-stock


    Amazon Burned. Photo by Sebastian Liste
      

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